


Even As Our Coming Hither

by yuletide_archivist



Category: 18th & 19th Century CE RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:24:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for brighty</p>
    </blockquote>





	Even As Our Coming Hither

**Author's Note:**

> Written for brighty

 

 

They call me Adam. Some years ago - never mind how many! - when I was still in the first fresh bloom of youth, and consequently, prey to all the follies and foibles attendant upon that most tender stretch of a man's life, I decided, as boys will, to run away to sea. It was not the thirst for adventure that persuaded me of the necessity of doing so, as with so many others, nor the longing to see the world and to contemplate its immensities. Rather, it was the opposite impulse that drove me - a determination to come to terms with physical immensity such that I would be better placed to apprehend immensities invisible to the eye. My first encounter with overwhelming greatness did not take place on the rolling deck of a ship, after all, but within the four walls of the village schoolhouse.

There is much written about the anxieties of old men, who, upon first noticing the gradual deterioration of their faculties, first rage against their impending deaths, then, when the futility of this enterprise can no longer be ignored, either consign themselves exclusively to securing the wellbeing of their descendents, or slowly withdraw into a sort of death-in-life by way of preparation. Equally devastating to youth is the realization that its poor, half-developed faculties are yet unable, despite all its efforts, to fully comprehend the workings of the spheres. A debilitating self-consciousness descends upon one then; all the pleasure is stolen from learning, and one spends less time engaging in fruitful labour than in continually second-guessing one's grasp of the available facts and lusting after facts yet unknown, in order to make secure and unassailable one's place in the universe. Such a condition did beset me in my prime, and when I found I could no longer follow a line of argument without the fear of committing an error of reasoning striking deep into my soul, I made haste to consult the village physician, who prescribed a rest-cure: a year free of academic pursuits, supplemented by hard, honest work in the fields.

Now I am no physician, and yet, something struck me as being amiss with this prescription, such that I found myself questioning how effective a cure it could be. For while my predicament lay, undoubtedly, in my keen appreciation of the magnitude of things, I failed to see how mere physical removal from the source of my uneasiness could possibly solve it. What is the heart, as the philosopher said, but a spring, and what are the nerves, but so many strings, and what are the joints, but so many wheels? And if the springs, strings, or wheels of any mechanical contrivance are judged infirm, surely the entire body of it is not left to rust, nor are its working components improved, so as to compensate for the failings of the others. No! Springs, strings and wheels alike are examined, then mended or replaced, and the whole machine tested with tasks of increasing arduousness until its limit is reached, then reexamined, made stronger, and tested again. So it is with the human body, and so it was that I decided I should have nothing but immensity, day after shoreless day, until what limited view I had of it now seemed not only sufferable, but positively benign. Thus I bound up all my worldly possessions in a spotted kerchief, and crept out of the house on a dark December evening, with naught but a lantern to guide my steps. I made my way to the local inn, hoping to meet merchants or travellers who could direct me to Boston, where I might seek passage, perhaps, on a respectable merchant ship.

Never before had I heard such a clattering of ale-mugs and a chattering of voices as that which arose from the depths of the inn; never before had I breathed in such thick, stale air, so tangibly tinged with pipe-smoke and sweat. Merchants discussed their wares over their drinks; regulars, like the butcher and the cobbler, talked ceaselessly among themselves, and the laughter of college-going men was often heard, high and extraordinarily piercing, over the sea of noise. My own voice - not by any means loud in ordinary circumstances - was completely drowned out, and my attempts to solicit attention failed, until, looking around the room in despair, my eyes fell upon an elderly man sitting hunched in a corner, slowly sipping his drink. His hair, which had already begun inching back from his broad brow, fell in wispy white curls about his ears, while an impressive moustache drooped discouragingly across the length of his upper lip. The single candlestick on the table threw his face into shadow, but could not obscure his gaze, which may once have been piercing, but which had since been softened by age. He peered out at the world from above this moustache, thoughtful, and clearly interested in the proceedings.

I knew from what village gossip I had heard that this was Mr. Hawthorne, celebrated author and United States Consul, recently come home from Liverpool, who was now residing in the Wayside, the Alcott's house along Lexington Road, and apparently very much attached to the idea of building a tower from which he could watch the Concord sunrises. While he had been back for a number of years, his peculiarly reclusive nature ensured that few had seen him in person and even fewer had spoken to him since his return. It was almost certain, however, that he would know the way to Boston.

"Mr. Hawthorne, sir?" I ventured, approaching his table, "Would you be so kind, sir, as to point out the road to Boston?" For a moment I was unsure if he had heard, but then he lifted his head almost imperceptibly, and his eyes met mine.

"I am going off to sea," I said in a slightly louder voice, by way of explanation.

At that the old man looked taken-aback. "Why, Melville's ghost!" he exclaimed, not unkindly, "Melville's ghost, come back from his travels abroad to haunt me!" I saw at once that he had mistaken me for some old friend.

"I fear you are mistaken, sir," I said, stepping forward into the light, "My name is Adam, and I have not yet had the pleasure of making your acquaintance."

"Indeed," he replied, squinting up at me, "Indeed. Of course, Melville was a young man when I first met him. He was younger than I was, at any rate. Not young, precisely. What was it that made him seem younger than he was? Those eyes, perhaps, open and frank like a child's. And then, his eagerness for instruction. But now I see," he said, nodding gravely at me, "that you are very much younger than even he was, then. Are you certain you want to go to sea, boy? It is not a place for children."

"I'm not a child," I said, injured, "I'll be fifteen in January."

"Will you? Why then, I beg your pardon," he said, "Fifteen is a very respectable age, I'm sure. My eyes, alas, are failing, and in this undoubtedly dim light, I took you to be much younger. Thirteen, perhaps. But even then," he said, with a sigh, "the old tend to underestimate the young. When I was thirteen, I hadn't yet begun living. Melville, on the other hand, had taken a job as a bank-clerk, but even he didn't go to sea until he was - eighteen? My memory fails me, too. Still, I must remember not to judge today's youth by my own lax standards."

"This Melville, sir," I asked, forgetting my mission for an instant, "Is he the Mr. Herman Melville, who wrote Typee?" The book in question had been eagerly devoured by my class-mates and I, by virtue of being one of the few works of literature that could hold our attention for any significant period of time, containing, as it did, cannibals and tropical climes enough to ignite any boy's imagination.

"He is," Mr. Hawthorne replied, "I'll make a deal with you, young man; I'll get you a drink and bowl of something warm, and you'll tell me why you're so set on going to sea. In return, I'll tell you about my friend Melville, and point out the road to Boston, but only if you agree to go home for the night. It's too late for anyone to be walking anywhere, least of all when they don't know the way - and if you wish to go to sea tomorrow, I won't be here to stop you." I could not but agree to such a generous offer, and he signaled to the innkeeper's wife at once. While we waited for our meals to arrive, I told him my history, and after a well-placed question or two, he began to speak.

"What can I tell you about Herman Melville? I, like everyone else on God's green earth, know far too little about the man; our everyday habits and customs are as alien to him as they would be to any one of the Polynesians he writes about. There are some men, boy, who are as surely owned by the ocean as others are by their kin, kind, or worldly possessions; the small comforts of hearth and home hold no joy for them, and are often scorned instead of sought. Melville is such a man. You can see it in the steadiness of his quick, rolling gait, in the barely noticeable flicker in his eyes as he gets his bearings; you can see it stretched taut in the muscles of his neck, leaving him perpetually braced against the churning of a distant sea.

And yet Melville is not precisely a wanderer by nature. He wants a home, like every one of us, but he will not deceive himself by creating a heaven where one does not exist. And because there is no such thing as a heaven on this uncertain earth, he will be searching for one all his life, for he cannot rest easy under the assumption that there is no heaven any more than he can pretend he has found it. That is Herman Melville, essentially; he is a vagabond by default rather than by intention; he is a pilgrim who will never find his Holy Land. All his eccentricities branch out from this central fact; once you understand this, you have understood the man as far as you can reasonably expect to understand him without having read his books, and even those are variations on the theme that is his basic character. In fact, I sometimes think Melville is the ocean personified, for he is just as capable of reflecting light off his surface as he is of plunging down into his depths, and surface and depth alike are made of the same grey water, despite all appearances to the contrary.

We met at Field's picnic, if I recall rightly. A group of us - my wife and I, Field, Duyckinck, Matthews, Fields, Holmes, and Melville himself, of course - took it into our heads to scale Monument Mountain; a symbol, perhaps, for all we desired in life. All of us in that group had some small body of work that he was already known for, and all of us cherished the hope that he might do yet more in the days to come. It is a singular idiosyncrasy of mankind, I find, that he is unwilling, for better or for worse, to leave the earth exactly as it was when he entered it. No, he must find some way of leaving his mark, no matter what it is; he must have some monument to his name before he can rest easy in his old age. All the good works of man are conducted in answer to this urge, and all the evil also. And yet, thousands die each day without anyone but their close relatives to remember them, and there are many who die forgotten by the world, without so much as a tombstone to their name.

Such is the vanity of mankind's deepest desires! On that day, however, none of the members of our party were nursing such Ecclesiastian despair; on the contrary, we were absorbed in merry-making, even as thunder-clouds gathered on the horizon. I raised a great hue and cry, making out that we were all doomed. Holmes managed to make some sort of shelter out of three branches, and we sat beneath it to eat and sip champagne, while thunder rumbled all around us. Stories were told, anecdotes swapped, and then we scattered out on the mountain, which was now lit up by intermittent lightning-flashes, which caught on the rocks and cast jagged shadows across the mountain face. To the amusement of the company, Melville sat astride a small outcropping of rock, hauling imaginary ropes and shouting out commands in his strident seaman's voice, while Holmes complained loudly and petulantly that the roaring and tossing of the sea was making him ill.

"Hallo!" I called out, pointing at a couple of leaves that happened to be blowing past, "Look to starboard, mates! Bless me if those aren't the Carbuncles of ancient legend; catch one, boys, and we'll have a lucky voyage!" Duyckinck and Field ran back and forth, grabbing at the wind-blown leaves. Matthews affected the squint of a near-sighted sea captain, peering out at the horizon through an eyeglass. Fields, meanwhile, had bestowed a crown made of young branches upon my lovely Sophia, and, out of general distaste for the monarchy, had christened her `Mrs. President', overseer of our topsy-turvy excursion. When the wind had died down somewhat, and the lightning and thunder had similarly grown more subdued, we made our way down from the mountain in high spirits, still laughing, leaves still caught in our tangled hair. Unwilling to go home after so merry an afternoon, we went to see Ice Glen, a nearby ravine, after which, exhausted, we decided to call it a day.

I met Melville on a number of other occasions, and finding that I liked him quite considerably, I invited him to stay at our farmhouse in Lenox. `Our' farmhouse, I say, but the fact is I had yet to build my family a home of their own, and for posterity. Even after the success of `The Scarlet Letter', the bills remained too many, and the children's needs too abundant, to think of spending any of our money on a house. Why, even now, I barely have enough money for a tower to place my study in, and at the rate it is being built, it is doubtful if I shall see it completed before I die. In any case, he accepted, and promised to come in early September, so as to experience all the delights of a New England autumn on a New England farm. And before he left..."and here Mr. Hawthorne stopped, hesitant.

"Before he left, sir?" I prompted.

"Well," he said, gesticulating helplessly, "The other thing one needs to know about Herman Melville to understand him is that he went to sea when he was very young, and being somewhat malleable by nature - the gentlest fellow in the world, mind! - he picked up some habits there that are - how shall I say, boy? - frowned upon in civilized society. He has a tendency towards passionate outbursts, in speech as in action, and perhaps towards a physical familiarity some might call inappropriate, among friends. But my purpose in telling his story is not to besmirch his reputation, and so I ask that you take these gestures of his in the spirit they were no doubt intended. Do you understand, boy?"

"Absolutely, sir," I said, "You mean to say that Mr. Melville, having spent his young life working for a living, lacks those refinements and that pervading air of gentility that prominent New England families often affect, indicating perhaps a misplaced longing for the old British ways." And here I winked, knowing from what little I had read of his works that Mr. Hawthorne's views of what society should be differed considerably from this pompous and old-fashioned ideal.

"Yes! Yes, my boy, you've got it," said Mr. Hawthorne, seemingly relieved, "In view of this, ah, lack of refinement, it was perfectly natural that he should have done what he did next, and yet if others were to hear of it, they would not perhaps be as forgiving of his code of morals - so unlike their own - as I believe you to be."

"My lips are sealed, sir," I said with some impatience, thinking that, in these enlightened times, it scarcely mattered what sort of minor social gaffe the man had committed, all those years ago, "and you can depend upon my silence. Pray proceed with your story."

"Very well," he replied, "The other guests having already left my company, Melville looked earnestly and consideringly at me, then reached up and cupped my jaw in his palm," at which point his voice softened, and he smiled, which I took to be signs of the extent of his love for his friend, "for all the world as if I were a horse being sold at the market.

"You have a peculiar face, sir," he said.

"What do you mean by that, Melville?" I exclaimed sharply, for his touch, though not unpleasant, had surprised me, and my vanity, which I'm afraid had been rather indulged in my youth, was wounded by what I took to be a personal remark.

"Only that I haven't yet met another man who looks on the outside like he really is inside," he replied, running his thumb down the edge of my jaw, then slowly tracing the outline of my lip in what I took to be unrestrained curiosity, "nor another man whose character is such a blend of light and shadow, or of sternness and tenderness, as yours is." And with that he smiled, stepped back slightly, and bid me farewell, leaving me speechless and flushed at the lavish compliment.

Such lavish compliments, I was to learn in the months that were to come, were characteristic of Melville. He was a man who scorned to say in a sentence what he felt could only be properly expressed in two pages, and from that day on he turned his talents to the furthering of my career. Having read one of my initial attempts, `Mosses from an Old Manse' - yes, my boy, written in the very same Old Manse you know - he took the liberty of comparing me to Shakespeare, and other extremities of the sort. Flattered by his attentions and his regard for my opinions, and having what I hope was a genuine liking for the man that extended beyond that, I naturally began to spend more of my leisure hours with him, particularly after he'd purchased Arrowhead, a farm some six miles away. We rapidly grew closer, and took to spending days, and then nights, at each other's houses, drinking brandy and wine into the wee hours of the morning, and talking of everything in heaven and on earth." Here Mr. Hawthorne hesitated again, then seemed to think better of it, and went on.

"What happens next is something I am unsure how to tell as a story, as I have less idea of its causes and subtleties than I would like. Time is a great rewriter of memories, boy, and if you learn anything from my story, let it be this - never swear to the facts of any event that took place any considerable length of time ago. Doing so places you in a precarious position; you are essentially judging as an older man something you felt as a younger, and there is nothing like this mismatch of head and heart to lead one to erroneous conclusions. All I can say is that Melville's enthusiasms grew more and more tiring to my ears, and began to seem almost purposeless. He appeared, more and more, to be one of those exasperating creatures who are so intent on continually going round in circles, as it were, that they fail to realize that, despite their tireless walking, they have made no great journey. He began to make greater claims on my time, refusing to accept my excuses for not having lunch with his family, and insisting that I visit his house several times a month, leading me, on many an occasion, to abandon my work and family so as to keep the peace between us. That summer, I began to make plans to move to the Wayside, and, it must be admitted, I may have looked forward to the move more than I should have.

And yet our misinterpretations of the present are equally dangerous, if not more so, than our misinterpretations of the past! For I see now that Melville believed, then, that I understood him; even more, that I was the only man who could possibly understand him. No doubt he took my plans to move to be symbolic of some revulsion I harboured towards him, perhaps even some way of passing judgement on what he saw to be the incompleteness of his character. He was wrong, of course. If only I had understood him, I might have stayed to be his comfort; my own journey does not seem very great, now that I look back upon it, and there are parts of his `Moby Dick' and `Pierre' that, upon a re-reading, suggest the presence of a greater wisdom than I shall ever possess. Still, at the time I was convinced - and I may still be, even now - that true greatness lay not in questioning and approximating God, as Melville was wont to do, but in being content with one's position in the greater scheme of things, and perhaps accurately portraying one or two of His creatures, as a tribute to that greater power of invention.

Whatever the reason, and whatever the rights and wrongs of the affair, his letters grew less effusive and his visits grew less. He came to see me once at the Wayside, and once at Liverpool, while I was there, and then, tired out by his writing, he went off to the Holy Land in order to pursue his constant pilgrimage in some way less injurious to his health. He stopped at Liverpool on his way home, and I have not seen hide or hair of him since then." He stopped, and took a large swig of his drink as a younger man might have done, then immediately began to cough loudly, the effort being too much for him. I got up and thumped him soundly on the back; an action which, unfortunately, led to more pronounced coughing. Deciding that my intervention was, in fact, causing more problems than it solved, I stepped back, and waited for the old man's coughing to subside.

"And what happened next, sir?" I asked eagerly, once he seemed to have regained his breath.

"What happened next?" he asked, smiling "You're talking like a writer, boy. That's the end of it, as far as I can see, unless I should meet Melville again one of these days. Now don't look so disappointed, endings don't always occur in this world of ours, and when they do, they're not always happy; people can't see into each other's souls the way writers understand their characters; Melville thinks it's from lack of trying and I think it's one of the inconveniences of being human, but the fact remains. I've kept you from your warm bed for far too long, as I can see," he said, for the big, gold-faced clock in the inn had just chimed midnight, "and you should be getting home. One last word of advice from an old man - read Melville's books, before you go to sea. A sailor's life isn't something one enters into without some preparation; well, Melville's books touch upon some of the technicalities of sailing, and give one a good idea of life at sea, so I've been told. Also, there are a great many of them, which will give you some time to grow, and although age doesn't necessarily make you any wiser, as I should know, it does give you something of an advantage in terms of experience, and that's not something to be scoffed at." Rising, he paid the bill, and we walked out of the inn together.

"And that's the road to Boston," he said, pointing down a wide dirt road, "It meets the main road further on, and there are generally enough people travelling along it at any one time to make it fairly easy to get further directions. Good-night, Adam! And good luck." He shook my hand firmly, and then walked off in the direction of his house, leaving me to creep back into my own.

I took his advice, and over the next few months, made a study of Melville's books. Having found a sympathetic companion - a fellow-pilgrim, as it were! - to travel alongside me on the road to understanding, it seemed less and less imperative that I should make my own arduous way through the treacherous waters he described so effectively in flowing prose. Weeks turned to months, by which time I had completed my study and begun a series of new projects, having entirely forgotten about my resolution to go to sea. The schoolmaster, pleased at the return of my interest for learning, proposed that I should attend college in nearby Cambridge - a proposal which I acquiesced to with pleasure.

I never saw Mr. Hawthorne again. Several years later, he died while on a tour of the White Mountains, leaving behind him a wife and three children, a large selection of writing of middling-to-excellent quality, and, appended to the Wayside, a tower three stories high. His demise, like that of all those who breathe their last away from home, seemed oddly arbitrary, leaving a jarring sense of business unfinished and work still undone; even now, I hear, Mrs. Hawthorne is editing his half-filled note-books for publication. He bequeathed no ancestral home to his children beyond that same tower, which can hardly be called so, being only marginally taller than the house itself - yet it stands, solid and unwavering; unshakeable proof of his brief time on earth.

When my errands lead me down Lexington Road, I never fail to stop a moment before that tower, overshadowed as it is by elm, birch, and maple. It does not by any means resemble Mr. Melville's Cathedral of Cologne, nor his Bell-Tower in Italy, but the stones are good and fit together well, the copestone is firmly set on the top, and the foundations are strong. And what more can a man ask beyond that, and also, perhaps, that the good God ease our going hence and our coming hither, and send us a few ripe years that we can live out fruitfully underneath His firmament, whether we should choose to do so on land or at sea.

 

 

 


End file.
